“¢ A fresh wave of global risk-aversion trade underpins JPY’s safe-haven demand.
“¢ The USD trims a part of Thursday’s strong gains and fails to lend any support.
“¢ Today’s key focus will remain on the closely watched US monthly jobs report.
The USD/JPY pair tumbled to over one-week lows on the last trading day of the week, with bears eyeing a follow-through weakness below the 111.00 round figure mark.
The pair extended this week’s retracement slide from YTD tops, levels just above the 112.00 round figure mark, and remained under some selling pressure for the third consecutive session on Friday amid the prevalent risk-off mood.
A fresh wave of global risk-aversion trade, triggered by a sharp decline in Chinese exports data for February, provided a strong boost to the Japanese Yen’s relative safe-haven status and exerted fresh downward pressure on the major.
Meanwhile, the US Dollar trimmed a part of the previous session’s strong gains, primarily on the back of dovish ECB-led slump in the shared currency, and further collaborated to the pair’s heavily offered tone and a sharp intraday slide.
Adding to this, possibilities of some technical selling below the very important 200-day SMA further aggravated the downward momentum and momentarily dragged the pair below the 111.00 handle in the last hour.
It would now be interesting to see if the pair is able to find any support at lower levels or continues with its corrective slide as the focus now shifts to the keenly watched US monthly jobs report – popularly known as NFP, for some fresh impetus.
Technical levels to watch
A follow-through selling has the potential to continue dragging the pair further towards the 110.60-55 region before bears eventually target 110.25 intermediate support en-route the key 110.00 psychological mark. On the flip side, the 111.40 region (200-DMA) now becomes an immediate hurdle, above which the pair is likely to make a fresh attempt towards conquering the 112.00 round figure mark.
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